Re: Garrigues Field Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica

David,
 
I find it far more useable and more typical of current field guides. Many of the tropical American guides are oldschool tomes where the emphasis is on the life history information rather than on the images. For example, the Stiles & Skutch "Birds of Costa Rica" guide has 511 pages of text and then depicts the 840 some odd Costa Rican species on a mere 52 plates! Great information but not near as functional as something that depicts all of the plumage variations, age and sex, morphs, etc. IMHO a "field guide" that requires you to read through 500+ pages of SMALL text to make many ID's is not functional.
 
The Garrigues & Dean guide "Birds of Costa Rica" is done in the more modern and functional field guide style with emphasis on the drawings. If you want to read on every aspect of the birds' behavior and natural history you won't find it of course in the more compact Dean and Garrigues, but you will find it FAR more functional as a field guide as the drawings are not only more complete (covering more plumage variation) but in accordance with modern field guide trends worldwide the images are a lot more realistic with greater attention to shape, etc. For me in direct comparison, I struggled with the sometimes 1/2" tall image (again with only 52 plates for 840 species) on the older Stiles & Skutch, but found it easy to use the larger, more accurate, and more realistic depictions found in Garrigues & Dean guide (covering the same number of species across >325 pages of illustrations). It was asimple matter of the depictions actually looked like the bird.
 Not to mention that the information is the 3 year old Garrigues & Dean (copyright 2007) is far more current naturally than the 21 year old Stiles & Skutch (1989).
 
I highly recommend both books as the older tome offers A LOT more information on the species, but for those that own both I'd be IMMENSELY surprised if anyone didn't leave this book at home and carry Garrigues & Dean in the field. For the record, I am not criticizing Gardner's illustrations in the guide. These are done in the typical method that ALL field guides were done in a quarter century back. These were typically less realistic depictions with often a generic shape for each family with the important field marks flatly painted on all. It wasn't until more recent guides have come out, that we have seen these more realistic paintings with more emphasis on differing subtle shapes of birds. This has been a universal trend it seems and for me, to be able to view an illustration that REALLY looks like the bird rather than a flattened cartoon version of it is VERY helpful.
 
Best,
 
Jeff Bouton
Port Charlotte, FL
jbouton2@...


--- On Sun, 2/21/10, David M. Gascoigne <bateleur27@...> wrote:


From: David M. Gascoigne <bateleur27@...>
Subject: [BIRDCHAT] Garrigues Field Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica
To: BIRDCHAT@...
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010, 6:28 PM


I just placed an order for a book I need and added the above item to qualify for free shipping. I already have the Skutch and Stiles Field Guide, but I am wondering if anyone has experience with the Garrigues guide. All comments would be appreciated.



David M. Gascoigne, 606 Osprey Drive, Waterloo, ON Canada N2V 2A5  519 725-0866, Fax 519 725-1176, blog: www.travelswithbirds.blogspot.com
                                         
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